Imagine billboards that look like posters with rotating text, newspapers that update automatically, catalogs that never become outdated and electronic books that can display volumes of information as easily as flipping a page.
It sounds like science fiction, but electronic ink has already arrived.
In what may be the first step toward realizing this sci-fi-like vision, one of the leading display manufacturers has announced that it will develop electronic ink displays that actually look like physical paper.
E Ink and Philips Components announced plans this week to jointly develop high-resolution electronic ink displays for handheld devices such as PDAs and electronic books.
The high-contrast, low-power displays could lead to PDAs, cell phones, pagers, e-books and other handheld devices that are lighter and more readable than ever before, said Russ Wilcox, vice president and general manager for E Ink.
Under the agreement, Philips Venture Capital and Philips Components will invest $7.5 million in E Ink to help advance research and development.
In return, Philips Components secured exclusive global rights to manufacture and sell handheld devices using E Ink's technology. The companies plan to develop a prototype later this year that they expect to be available to consumers by 2003.
As anyone who has arduously squinted while reading text on a laptop or Palm handheld knows, the electronic display industry has been dominated by liquid crystal displays (LCDs) that can be difficult to read.
Electronic ink, which combines the look of ink on paper with the dynamic capability of an electronic display, could revolutionize the way that text is displayed, Wilcox said.
E Ink's technology contains millions of black and white particles in microcapsules that, when electrically charged, either sink to the bottom or float to the top. The ink can be coated over large areas cheaply and continually updated with new information, and it works on virtually any surface, from plastic to metal and paper.
E Ink recently became the first company to bring electronic ink to market, beating Xerox PARC's Gyricon Media, which researched the technology for more than two decades.
Lucent Technologies and E Ink demonstrated the first flexible electronic ink prototype in November 2000. In May 1999, E Ink demonstrated the first commercial electronic ink product, called Immedia -- large indoor signs that can be changed automatically by remote two-way pagers controlled through the Internet.
So far E Ink has focused on developing these large text displays. But the agreement with Philips marks a fundamental shift toward creating high-resolution, graphical electronic displays.
E Ink hopes to use Philips' global reach to seep into the handheld display market, which is expected to exceed $10 billion over the next few years, according to DisplaySearch.
The benefits of electronic ink are clear. Electronic ink is three to six times brighter than reflective LCDs. The displays can be read without back-lighting, in both dim light and full sunlight.
In addition to being more readable, devices using electronic ink displays are expected to be 30 percent thinner and lighter than traditional LCD displays.
What's more, electronic ink allows a fixed image to remain on screen even after the power source is shut off. With less than 1/1000th the power required by a standard notebook computer screen, future portable devices could be less expensive and more portable, and have longer battery life.
One of the primary reasons that most consumers haven't accepted e-books is their lack of readability, Wilcox said. Most users want a device that's both portable and has a bigger screen -- something that's difficult to achieve with current displays.
Electronic ink displays will allow manufacturers to create dedicated devices that have the same power draw and weight but offer a larger screen. The result would be e-books that are thinner and lighter, and look like a pad of paper that cause less eyestrain than other displays that typically emit or transmit light.
"(The new displays) could help the whole e-book field take off," Wilcox said.
Analysts agree that the promise of E Ink's high-contrast, low-power technology could draw reluctant consumers to empty their wallets.
"I can see why manufacturers of cell phones and PDAs are interested in switching display technologies," Dan O'Brien, senior analyst with Forrester Research, said. "If they can get the cost down and produce small screens, then everybody will be happy.... That's what people are looking for in this mobile world."
So far, E Ink has secured investments from major publishers such as Hearst and Gannett. That's a sign that the publishing industry has a strong interest in the technology, Wilcox said.
Philips' investment in E Ink's research and development program is the first step in developing what could be an even more revolutionary use for its technology -- the next generation of electronic paper.
Electronic paper will combine the look of paper in high-resolution displays with flexible technologies to create the feel of paper. E Ink's vision of electronic paper, called "Radio Paper," could be available within the next four to five years, Wilcox said.
The possibilities for e-paper are endless, from dynamic logos in clothing to newspapers that automatically update upon wireless command.
But it could be a long time before manufacturers can develop a product with the look and feel of paper that provides a viable alternative to the book, O'Brien said. While E Ink is making significant inroads, it still has a ways to go.
"They're going from a big format where resolution didn't matter much to a microformat," O'Brien said. "The holy grail is something in between a newspaper or a magazine or a book. That's going to be something that's tough to crack."
